Borderlands: Cover-Based Shooting

I played Borderlands for about thirty minutes this morning before I quit in frustration. I’ve nearly finished the game, I’m honestly just slogging through Crimson Lance at this point, and I hit an area that spawned three “Badass Lance Engineers” and a horde of “Lance Infantry.” In layman terms, I faced several nigh-invulnerable, minion-spawning enemies surrounded by more minions.

Luckily, the battle was indoors and cover was plentiful, but the fight did a lot to illustrate just how deadly boring cover-based shooting can be. Each of the Lance Engineers would put up a turret, and I would be pinned down behind cover until one of the Lance Infantry came running up to check on me, or my shields regenerated.

Once my shields regenerated, I would pop out from behind cover, unload my combat rifle into the closest enemy, and pop back behind cover to wait for my shield to recharge again. About every second or third time this occurred, my soldier’s turret would finish its cooldown, and I’d set it up on one side of my cover, pop out of the other, and gun down one of the Engineers. It was grueling, not to mention boring.

This section of the game feels like it was phoned in. The Crimson Lance enclave doesn’t feel like anything new or exciting, it just feels like a retread of first, the Lost Mines, and then, Sledge’s Hideout. The level design is about the same, though noticeably shorter. But that’s disappointing. I’d rather be looking at something new, especially since the Crimson Lance aren’t anything to write home about.

I’ve basically switched to one tactic. I use my combat rifle on everything. With my upgrades and everything, the one I have does several hundred damage per round, works out to medium range, and carried over one hundred rounds. I shoot it in the head if it’s close enough that I can guarantee a hit, and I shoot it in the chest if it’s farther away. There’s no reason to use my other three equipped weapons.

The Eridium weapons are nothing special. They’re just weird and flashy. By the time I found the Eridium sniper rifle, I’d been carrying a higher-damage weapon around for a couple levels, and the Eridium launcher I found did less damage than the helix launcher I carry around in case of emergencies. But there aren’t any emergencies. There’s just combat rifle and more combat rifle. And it keeps getting better.